-1-
Charismatic, witty, intelligent, beautiful, all of these words had been used to describe the newly knighted Jedi Meleana Ariadne. Though none had ever been used by her mission partner, and as she watched the pots and pans fall from the cabinet above her she could think of a few he might be using to describe her when the clatter woke him.
Clumsy, stubborn, overly sarcastic, rash, he stopped short of stupid, then rethought, stupid did seem to fit. Obi-Wan Kenobi rolled out of bed with an unhappy sigh. He was thirsty, but it was clear from all the clatter that his mission partner was in the ships kitchen. As he walked towards the it he couldn't help but remember how he'd felt when he'd heard he'd be going on a mission without his Padawan. Relief, though he would never say it. He didn't think he was ready to train the boy and was glad that the senior members of the council wanted to spend time training him. He'd been indifferent to the idea of another newly knighted Jedi as his mission partner, and admittedly she had made a good first impression. Sadly the lasting impression was not so good. He gave her a side glance as he walked into the kitchen she was hunched over picking up the mess of pots and pans she had made.
"Sorry," she said in a sincere voice. He didn't see the roll of her eyes. She knew he was just seconds from launching into a lecture.
"And how exactly does a Jedi Knight manage to toss all of the pans on the floor?" he asked as he poured himself a drink.
She put the last pan back in the top cabinet and leaned against the counter. "Do you honestly think I would wake you up on purpose? Frankly I was enjoying the peace and quiet."
"As was I, that's why I didn't disturb it."
Her dark purple eyes met his. "I said I was sorry."
"You don't look sorry," he turned away from her. "I'm going to see how far we are from Ithor."
"Have fun," Meleana said as he walked out. She looked down at her nightgown, felt her disheveled light-brown hair and sighed, she liked to at least look good for an argument.
Obi-Wan sat down in the control room and set his drink down on the flat control surface in front of him. He turned the chair to look at the nav computer. It was an older model that Meleana had customized, he wasn't sure if she had made it harder to use on purpose, or if she was really that incompetent. As he clicked through options the ship dropped out of hyperspace violently. His drink spilled all over the controls. He heard the clang of pots and pans as they fell from the cabinet in the kitchen and muttered something very un-Jedi-like under his breath. He ignored the mess on the control panel and looked back to the nav screen. He didn't think he'd pressed anything out of the ordinary.
"What the hell did you do?" Meleana, now dressed in a white sleeveless top and brown trousers demanded. She looked at the sparking control panel and her mouth dropped. "Force, Kenobi what the hell did you do!"
He really didn't want to say he didn't know. "I don't know."
Meleana rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a towel, though it was probably too late to prevent the control panel from being damaged. She sat down in front of the control's and wiped them down.
"You don't know!" she said in as calm a voice as possible having just processed what he had said. "What do you mean you don't know? How is it a Jedi Knight knocks us out of hyperspace, fries the control panel and knocks all the pots and pans out of the cupboard!"
"Well it's your programming why don't you tell me?" he said with only a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Meleana took a deep breath to calm her self. "Just get out of here I'll see what I can do to fix your mess," she wouldn't have been so hard on him if he wasn't always so hard on her. "No really leave so I can get to that computer before you do any more damage."
He walked out without another word and Meleana took his seat at the nav computer. The main controls sparked again Meleana left the nav screen and turned back to the main controls. She pulled up the protective metal panel on the top, obviously it wasn't protective enough. She had built the ship herself as a teenager. Her Master had decided it would help her learn patients. Apparently he didn't think having her build a speeder bike from scratch was good enough. She'd never been technically inclined before her Master had chosen these tasks for her, and she'd only recently put the finishing touches on the ship. Before his death, the ship had sat in a hanger bay in the Jedi temple being used only occasionally by other Jedi. When her Master died she'd suddenly found a new fondness for it. After getting permission from the council she gave up her room in the temple and moved into the ship. Now seeing the fried control panel she realized she'd become more attached to it than she'd known.
The Jaded Star, as she called it, wasn't just a hunk of metal, it was something she had left of her Master. Every inch of the ship reminded her of him. He'd helped her solder the wire that was currently setting fire to the rest of them; which brought to her attention the lack of a fire extinguisher in the control room.
She shut her eyes and sighed sadly before standing calmly. Surely she'd put a fire extinguisher somewhere on the ship.
"Did you fix it?"
She ignored Obi-Wan's question as she passed through the main room on her way to the kitchen. She opened the storage closet and removed the fire extinguisher. She knew she hadn't put it there, but it was exactly the sort of place her Master would stick one. He wouldn't have put one in every room. Keeping one somewhat hidden was his way of keeping her safe without coddling her.
Meleana resisted the urge to spray Obi-Wan down on her way to the control room. She put out the now flaming control panel and dropped the fire extinguisher to the ground. She sat back down at the nav computer. It, like everything else, was completely useless. She scratched her chin, she hadn't checked their position when she'd woken up and was unsure where in space they were.
She started to examine the smoldering control panel to see if any of it could be rewired or patched up in anyway. She nearly fell in as the ship shot back into hyperspace. She quickly turned back to the nav computer, it was still offline. She tried a few of the other systems, also off line. So why were they hurtling though hyperspace and where were they going?
"This is a nightmare," she muttered as she thought of all the ways in which things could go catastrophically wrong. She hurried back into the main room and removed a panel from the floor. She jumped into the lower level of the ship and quietly hoped her Master had hidden some repair parts down there.
"Did you fix it?" Obi-Wan yelled down.
"Nope." She yelled as she pried open a crate.
"So where are we going?"
"Hopefully not to become one with the force," Meleana kicked the crate full of old clothing. How did something like that even end up here? What did her Master think, she'd go on a mission with nothing to wear? "Though right now that sounds like a pleasant alternative to fixing this mess."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No," she wanted to tell him to strap himself to the front of the ship to buffer the cataclysmic crash they were likely headed for, but restrained her self.
She broke open a few more crates; none were filled with emergency parts. She looked around the store room. The speeder bike was the only thing left. She stared at it a moment and sighed. She walked over to the bike and sat down. She drove the bike over to the opening in the ceiling and lifted it into the main room with the force.
"Why do you have a speeder bike?" Obi-wan asked with some confusion as Meleana climbed back into the main room.
"I just keep it around for spare parts incase some idiot fries the ship," she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
She brought the speeder bike into the control room and began surveying the wreckage.
Obi-Wan spent several hours meditating in the cabin before finally deciding to check up on Meleana in the control room. He found her sitting in a pile of old burnt parts and dirty tools. Her face and hands were covered in soot.
"If you want to break something you'll have to wait until I've fixed something." she said as she delicately removed a few wires from her speeder.
"Have you made any progress?" He was careful to keep his voice level.
"It's either operable or inoperable, there is no in between stage."
"Did you at least figure out where we are headed?"
"No," Meleana started placing the wires in the control panel. "I have a few theories. One, we're heading to Ithor and everything will be fine, two we're headed beck towards Coruscant and everything will be fine. Three, we are going to continue on and stop at whatever random coordinates the ship has chosen. Four, we will keep on going and going until the ship runs out of fuel. And five, we plow into something and are killed instantly."
He watched her silently waiting to see if she would ask him for any help. He walked out once he was sure she wanted nothing to do with him.
